


A Complex System

by mific



Category: Breakfast with Scot (2007)
Genre: Character Development, Fanfiction, M/M, back story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:30:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who is Sam Miller, Eric's partner, and why is Billy such an asshole?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Complex System

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ainsley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainsley/gifts).



> This is for ainsley, who asked for a story about "Breakfast With Scot" as one of her choices.  
> She said: _"We didn't see a lot of Sam in the movie, despite it being from his partner's POV; who is Sam? What does he think about? *waves hands in broad manner* How does he feel about Scot, or about Eric's shame at being gay? That would have to be kind of tough to swallow in a partner."_  
>   
>  ainsley also said _"I love character exploration and growth, and never quite manage to read enough stories that have that happen not through sexual awakenings."_  
>   
>  I hope that this story about Sam is the sort of thing you wanted. In my head this dovetails into the verse of [Defensive Zone](http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/62/defensivezone.html) by Nos4a2no9, go read it if you haven't, it's great.

****

 

Sam Miller’s mother Becca was a hippie Jewish princess. It was the sixties, after all, and everyone was turning on, tuning in and dropping out.

Her rebellion against her conservative middle-class parents didn’t go quite so far as marrying a Christian, not that Ben and Martha Cohen would have objected, being secular academic Jews. No, Becca fell in love with Danny Miller, a Zionist activist at the U of Toronto where she was studying English Lit and Journalism. They were married at a registry office with a taxi driver and a down-at-heel harmonica busker roped in as witnesses. Becca clutched a bunch of daisies liberated from a local park, and the busker insisted on playing the _Wedding March_ on his mouth harp. After the ceremony they bought everyone breakfast, then they took the taxi to the airport and flew to Israel, to a kibbutz that a friend of Danny’s had recommended.

Becca hated it. She missed Toronto more than she’d ever imagined and she missed speaking English. She hated learning Hebrew, it was baking hot and dry, and she loathed the menial work she was rostered to do in the kitchens and orange orchards. Danny thrived, spending hours in the evenings in discussion groups while Becca sulked in their Spartan married quarters reading politically incorrect romance novels.

Getting pregnant was the final straw. They’d been quarrelling bitterly for weeks and then suddenly Becca was alienated, hormonal, bloated and nauseated. Developing high blood pressure and swollen ankles was all the excuse she needed to escape the endless heat for the blessed cool of a Toronto autumn.

Her parents’ welcome was on the chilly side as well, but Becca was used to their cool restraint. It was almost reassuring at first, being back in her old bedroom, albeit in disgrace, but the carefully unspoken disappointment ate away at her after a few weeks. By the time Sam was born on a sleet-filled February night in 1968, Becca was itching to escape again.

Not to Israel, though, where Danny was still caught up with the kibbutz, his letters filled with tedious politics. She sent him a photo of Sam, who was dark haired and wrinkled and with whom she had fallen in love. He sent her a Hebrew alphabet colouring book.

When Sam was six months old, Becca moved into an urban commune. Despite loving Sam she was easily distracted, smoking a lot of hash and more and more embroiled with Abe, a charismatic yoga teacher. Sam got used to being left at the communal crèche, or sometimes with his grandparents. He was a quiet child, observant and used to amusing himself.

The commune dissolved in a mess of factional infighting when Sam was one, and Becca and Sam moved in with Abe. He objected to his classes being “disrupted by that child” yet their house was generally chaotic, with numerous hangers-on. _Sycophants_ , Becca called them; _students_ , Abe retorted. Becca and Abe fought a lot. Sam became a regular at his grandparents and Becca cut back on the hash and returned to College, finally getting her degree. What little recall Sam had of his first five years was of noisy but colourful chaos interspersed by the orderly tedium at Ben and Martha’s. On balance, Sam preferred the tedium.

Becca and Abe broke up when Sam was four and a half, and Danny reappeared, back from Israel, disillusioned by some change in kibbutz leadership. They all moved into a run-down shared house, and Sam was left at Ben and Martha’s apartment a lot while they had a second honeymoon. “Not that we ever had a first honeymoon”, Becca said acidly.

Three months later Danny was back in Israel and Becca was pregnant again. Billy was born the following spring. Two months after that, they heard that Danny had been killed by a land mine while driving a truckload of oranges to market.

Becca moved back in with Ben and Martha and took to her bed. Later, when he was an adult and could look things up on the internet, Sam realised that she must have been depressed. At the time she was simply absent, and for over a year he and Billy were raised by their grandparents. Sam missed his mother’s hugs and Billy never knew them, not until he was closer to two, and it was, according to the child psychology articles Sam later read on-line, too late.

It wasn’t that Ben and Martha were inadequate surrogate parents. Or actually, yes it was. They provided all the practical care that Sam and Billy could need, but were too set in their quiet, mannered ways to show much affection. Sam coped by copying their ordered existence and making it his own. Billy, who Sam later thought might have been slightly brain damaged by the amount of hash Becca had smoked in his pregnancy, railed against the quiet. Attention-seeking was his forte, and what little energy Ben and Martha were able to muster for their grandsons went to Billy. Sam became a reader.

His eighth birthday set a precedent. Becca wasn’t there – she came and went randomly, and often forgot important dates. Martha bought a cake and they had pizza for dinner – a food that was never usually allowed through the Cohen door. There was no real party, no friends; Sam had few friends and Martha had never encouraged any to visit him, nor did he ever stay over with anyone. In truth, Sam was embarrassed by his grandparents’ stuffiness and their old-fashioned apartment, full of highly polished dark old furniture.

A family dinner, then, and Billy only two and a half. As soon as the presents came out he started acting up. Billy was already a master of the tantrum and he started this one off in fine style, wailing “I wanna presn! Want one! Presn!” and hiccuping through tears.

Sam tried kicking him surreptitiously under the table, but that just made him yell louder. He grabbed at a book that Sam had just unwrapped and Sam grabbed it back. The cover tore off. Tears filled Sam’s eyes but he blinked them away. He clutched the damaged book to his chest. It was only a dull-looking guide called _The Birds of Canada_ , but it was his, and Billy had ruined it. Not for the first time, Sam wanted to kill him.

In later years, he decided that his life-long enjoyment of crime fiction stemmed from that impulse to murder Billy and hide his body where no-one would find it. He vacillated between homicidal impulses and guilt. Billy was his brother, after all, and you weren’t supposed to want to kill your brother. The Torah was pretty clear on that point.

They never again tried to throw Sam a birthday celebration without getting presents for Billy as well. His grandparents were nothing if not fair-minded, so when it was Billy’s birthday, six months later, they also got a few things for Sam. Sam was supposed to understand what was going on, though, so _his_ extra things were token gestures, whereas Billy’s were real presents, an inequality Sam just had to suck up, along with everything else. Billy had a sharp eye for a token gesture, and even at the age of three he was clear about his entitlements. That trait never changed.

Once Billy started school, Sam’s life got far more complicated. They were only at elementary school together for a couple or so years but Sam got sucked into Billy’s daily dramas, much as he tried to avoid them. Billy was a small-time bully if he thought he could get away with it, renown for stealing lunch from more easily cowed pupils. Sam got dragged in to sort out disputes or to rescue him if he’d taken on a kid with more backbone. It was hell, and he escaped to secondary school with intense relief, and then away to university in the nick of time, just as Billy arrived, having miraculously not been expelled from elementary school.

Secondary school was a Billy-free respite for Sam. He did well, settling into his studies and excelling. He was studious and quiet, and something of a teacher’s pet but his modesty kept other students from too much resentment. He found his own niches: the chess club, the swim team, the drama society. He was an introvert with a talent for acting: it had, he reflected somewhat cynically, stood him in good stead later, as a lawyer. He made friends – not many, but the friendships had lasted; they still kept in touch. It was also in secondary school that Sam developed his wry sense of humour, swapping one-liners with his closest friends as they emulated _Repo Man_ , pretending that they liked it better than _Revenge of the Nerds_ or _Ghostbusters_.

He wasn’t into hockey. He never watched games on TV, or followed the Leafs as did most of his class. Except…well, except that he was into the players, especially the jocks at his school. He watched them in the grounds and the showers – their easy physicality, horsing around with each other. He wanted them to grab him like that, to give him a noogie and rough him up playfully. The thought made him sweat, made him shift and adjust himself.

Not that these were new thoughts, no. Sam had known he liked boys since he was eleven, since grade six. And again, that revelation was Billy’s fault. Most things were.

Sam had managed to ditch Billy and was walking home. He wasn’t supposed to – Billy had only been in first grade a few months and Sam was meant to make sure he got onto the bus and safe home. Billy got into way too much trouble if left to his own devices after school. But Sam had already had to bail Billy out of an argument with three other first-graders, getting his shins kicked as thanks, and he’d had all he could take. He’d hidden until he saw Billy boarding the bus, then he’d walked.

It was snowing lightly, and the street was slippery with icy slush. He was soon cold and tired, and regretted not taking the bus.

A car pulled up next to him, door opening. A woman leaned out – Mrs Dwyer, his drama teacher. “Sam, you look frozen! Want a ride? I’ve got Joey in back there, and Barb’s here as well. Their mother was delayed so I’m giving them a ride home.” Barb, a girl in his year, waved at him from the front passenger seat. Mrs Dwyer continued: “You live nearby too, I think? C’mon, hop in the back with Joey.” He got in gratefully.

Joey Green was two grades ahead of Sam and already a star hockey player. He scooted across on the seat and Sam sat beside him. Sam was oddly tongue-tied, and as he warmed up he felt sweaty and flushed. Probably it was just the car’s heater, he told himself, pulling off his gloves. Mrs Dwyer and Barb were chatting away about an upcoming play.

Joey cleared his throat. “So, you coming to the game this weekend?” he asked.

Game? What…oh right, yeah, a grudge match with the local Catholic school, their arch-rivals. Sam hadn’t really had it on his radar at all, but he couldn’t say that. “Ah, yeah, sure. Wouldn’t miss it.”

Joey grinned, and brushed back his fringe. His hair was nearly black and quite long: theirs was a liberal school and it was the late seventies. He was very good-looking, his nose straight, jaw firm. No acne, unlike a lot of his less genetically fortunate classmates. At thirteen he was well-muscled, just starting to shave. “Cool,” he said, looking down briefly. Sam was transfixed by his eyelashes, long and dark, feathered against his cheeks. Joey glanced across, and grinned at him. “What?”

“Uh, w-what?” Sam stammered intelligently.

“You’re kinda staring.”

“Nhn,” said Sam, panicked. Shit. He reached out a finger and pretended to swipe at something on Joey’s cheek, then peered at his finger and wiped it on his jeans. “Bit of soot, that’s all.”

Joey smiled again. “Oh, right.” He wet his own finger and rubbed at the unblemished skin. “All gone?”

“Yeah,” said Sam, swallowing. His finger was still tingling where he’d touched Joey’s face, and he wanted to do it again. “Yeah, you’re fine.”

So after that he went to the games. He never became a fan of the Leafs or watched NHL games – well, hardly ever, only for the brief season Joey played, before he got caught using coke and suspended. Sam, though, was left with the memory of dark lashes on a smooth-skinned cheek, warm to the touch, and a well-suppressed yearning for hockey players. It was what drew him in when he met Eric in the bar that lunchtime, many years later. That and the loneliness in Eric’s eyes, the angry self-sufficiency he’d pulled around himself like a cloak since his injury. Noisy attention-seeking didn’t do it for Sam, but that quiet need hit all of his buttons.

Sam and Billy grew apart. Becca started drinking as well as smoking hash, and was in and out of rehab. Martha and Ben were their surrogate parents, but both Sam and Billy had escaped the old apartment as soon as they were able – into student accommodation on Sam’s part, while Billy took off on a road-trip to the States with one of his many girlfriends, as soon as he turned eighteen.

He never really settled anywhere for long after that, crashing back into Sam’s life at times like a rogue comet on an erratic orbit. He ran through a series of different jobs, mostly in sales. Cars, real estate, clothing. Sam worried that some day he was going to open the newspaper and see Billy’s name there, arrested for fraud, but it never happened. Probably Billy was too much of a coward to take those sort of risks, or maybe he was just damn lucky. 

Sam heard about Julie, Billy’s longest-running girlfriend. She sounded a lot like Becca, and wasn’t that a surprise: colourful but troubled, a junkie. Julie had a son, Scot, Sam heard, although Billy wasn’t the father. _Poor kid_ , he remembered thinking, stuck with a mother just like Becca and Billy for a step-Dad. He didn’t think about the kid for very long though. He and Eric were serious by then, and Sam had fallen hard, in love with a closeted ex-hockey player sportscaster. Eric was hot, and charismatic – the more so for being wounded – and sweet under his macho front. He only reminded Sam of Billy occasionally.  

Not that Sam was all that out and proud himself; it wasn’t in him to be an exhibitionist. He didn’t hide it though, didn’t deny who he was, not like Eric. The hiding hurt, but it was a price he was willing to pay. Martha knew, and accepted him. His grandfather had died of a stroke three years ago, and Martha had moved into a rest home. She sold the dingy old apartment for a staggering sum as the area was fashionable now – Sam had inherited some of her furniture. Eric teased him when he polished it, but he let Sam guide the renovations when they bought their house. Sam put in antique wooden doors which he'd found at a local second-hand dealer's and lovingly sanded and polished. Which was why it really wasn’t OK for Scot to put stickers on them, but he shouldn’t have lost it like that, Eric was right.

The Scot thing was a disaster at first. He was only eleven, and Julie had died from an overdose, no matter what bullshit Child Services had spun the kid. So Scot was an orphan, and Billy was legally his step-Dad, go figure. Julie had obviously been losing it to name Billy, or desperate and utterly out of options. Billy wasn’t even in the country, hiding out in Brazil. He’d never have agreed to take Scot except for the money that came with the kid. Sam knew that he and Eric had no choice at all really; they had to take Scot in. It terrified him, though, how Eric might react.

Weirdly, Eric coped pretty well, after some initial baulking. He and Scot had a similar energy and it was Sam who just as often got fed up, seeing Becca and Billy in the kid when they weren’t even related. When Eric discovered Scot could skate and they flung themselves headlong into peewee hockey Sam felt a little jealous for a while, then he pulled himself together and told himself to act his age, not his shoe size.

It had all worked out, in the end, and Scot was theirs, with Billy backing off. Billy had another girlfriend anyway – maybe a keeper for a change – and was back on the road. Eric had finally come out to his workmates. He still had a toehold in the closet but it was better than Sam had dared hope.

Scot was so damn camp, Sam thought fondly, watching him flick his feather boa over his shoulder as he teased Eric and they planned another shopping trip. Eric looked up across the breakfast table and caught Sam watching them both, no doubt with a sappy grin plastered across his face. Eric blew Sam a kiss, eyes crinkling, making Sam blush.

" _So_ gay together!" Scot announced triumphantly. Eric snorted.

As Sam ate his pancakes, he thought that he’d had a pretty narrow escape. He’d grown up reacting to his mother’s needy chaos, weighed down by his grandparents’ repression. He could easily have become a ghost, quietly competent, buried in his work and drifting through a series of shallow relationships like the one he’d had with Jonah. The only thing he missed from that time was Jonah’s golden retriever, Max.

Well, he could still have a dog, he thought. Scot might like a dog; boys liked dogs. Perhaps a Labrador? “We should get a dog,” Sam blurted. Oops.

Eric raised his eyebrows. “A dog? Scratching the antiques? You think?”

Sam flushed. “The antiques can look after themselves. Scot, what do you think? Would you like a dog, huh?”

Scot frowned, pursing his lips. They really were ridiculously bee-stung, Sam thought; he was going to be a nightmare once he hit puberty. “I wouldn’t like a _big_ dog,” Scot said thoughtfully, twiddling his boa. “They’re too messy.” Eric rolled his eyes. Scot brightened. “I know, we can get a miniature poodle. A white one, then I can accessorize her with different coloured collars. I’m going to call her Fifi.”

“Yeah, nice one, Sam,” said Eric, head in his hands. “Well played.”

 

~~the end~~


End file.
